An appeal court in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday reduced the jail term of a man convicted of pocketing VND1.83 billion (US$87,500) from a bank by replacing real notes with votive ones.

At the second hearing held by the People's Supreme Court in HCMC, Nguyen Phi Vu, 27, received an eight-year sentence, replacing the ten year term handed down previously.

The court's board of judges said they made the reduction because Vu's family had made amends for the consequences of Vu's wrongdoing.

According to the indictment, Vu was recruited as a cashier by the Shinhan Vina Bank's branch in the southern province of Binh Duong in 2005.

He was in charge of receiving money from the guards of the bank's money safer at the beginning of each working day and handed over money to them at the end of the day.

In the middle of 2010, Vu ordered stacks of votive notes which looked like polymer notes of VND500,000 ($23.67) in order to replace the real notes he planned to steal, knowing that the guards did not check stacks of money that had the seal of the State Bank of Vietnam.

His actions were uncovered on August 5 last year when one of the guards, Le Thi Bach Lan, detected that VND90 million ($4,200) was missing when Vu handed over money to her, and ordered checks on all the stacks managed by Vu.

While the checks were going on, Vu fled the bank, but turned himself into police one week later.

It was concluded that Vu had used the scheme to pocket VND1.85 billion; he was also found to have taken VND299 million ($14,100) in old and torn notes that he was asked to manage.